Product Review

How Did a Product with Four Simple Ingredients Get So Strange?

A well-funded attempt to degrade bourbon winds up protecting it. A wealthy United States Treasury Secretary gives himself a valuable franchise and no one objects. A rye whiskey empire spawns a renowned robber baron. The biggest company in the business shoot itself in the foot, repeatedly. An American whiskey type is named after the king of France and no one knows why. Members of two reviled immigrant minorities save the bourbon industry. Mushrooms improve bourbon’s taste.

Those are just a few of the surprising, true stories in Bourbon, Strange; the long-awaited sequel to Bourbon, Straight, the book that helped propel bourbon whiskey’s current robust revival.

In Bourbon, Strange, many of characteristics that make bourbon a mite peculiar are clearly explained, such as how bourbon is made, how collectors find and identify rare bottles, how whiskey is marketed and regulated, and why people argue so much about spelling.